


Reconstruction

by Ryo Hoshi (Hoshi_Ryo)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Conspiracy Theories, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 19:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3181256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoshi_Ryo/pseuds/Ryo%20Hoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxy had to build her (not entirely accurate) image of her mother from the evidence left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reconstruction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cassiopite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassiopite/gifts).



> There's a sneaky bonus of secondhand quadrant confusion which is not tagged for because I don't quite want to do that to people wanting firsthand quadrant confusion.

The first time she heard anything about her Ancestor was from a video clip she found on the internet.  Roxy had known her surname, there had been an elegantly embossed journal left to her, addressed to ‘R Lalonde’ from ‘R Lalonde;’ it had been curiosity that had led her to it, via one of the terminals left for her own use.

The clip was from an entertainment news show, showing (according to the breathless talking head) the famous author Rose Lalonde appearing at the premiere for the latest cinematic adaption of her works.  Rose was tall and lithe and elegant, the purple and black dress floating around her legs, one hand resting on the elbow of her escort (director Dave Strider, the announcer identified him as), the other holding a strangely shaped glass to her black lips which were curled into an elegant feline smile.

She was everything Roxy wanted to be, someday, and just had not realized before then.

 

It was boredom that led to Roxy first trying one of the bottles the house had been stocked with, boredom and the realization that these held the substance that was in her Mom’s glass most of the shots she saw of her.

The boredom itself came from little else but how little there was on the internet about Rose Lalonde for her to find easily.  Nearly all of it came from news sources, and mostly celebrity gossip sources.  It was so easy to imagine herself in Rose Lalonde’s place, drink in her hand with a hot blond guy dancing attendance on her while people threw money at her to write stories about wizards, with perfect poise and snark for all comers.

There were bottles of alcohol all over the place, and the strange special glasses for it.

At least part of it she could make happen.  There might not be a hot blond guy to dance attendance on her, there might not be any humans to throw money at her to write stories about wizards, but she could have the drink.

It became an unthinking habit, as she grew more aware of the strange patterns as to where there were still paywalls, to have a drink in one hand.

 

Roxy slowly learned how to hack her way past the paywalls, finding more and more strands of information about her Ancestor…  No, her Mom.  For all that the schoolfeeding that had been left for her tried to make her at least culturally a troll, as she learned the old, _human_ terms and started trying to get into the habit of using them the more she learned about what _really_ happened and the role her Mom had played.

Roxy had not wondered before about her life.  She had simply taken it for granted that living in a Carapacian colony with no other humans in sight was, well, normal.  The tall white lady who had taken care of her when she was too young to care for herself had moved on, after all, matched up sort of to the descriptions of Lusus in her schoolfeeds.

The ways groups of humans were depicted in the old stuff she found on the internet she had taken as simply being the _old_ ways, discarded and outmoded, charmingly retro at best.  That an outside force, that the Batterwitch, was behind them and had imposed them disastrously upon humanity had been a revelation.

The only thing surprising about it was that it was _not_ a surprise.

Going back through the shelves of books her Mom had left for her, though, explained why.  Knowing, now, what to look for, she saw the clues and subtle hints her Mom had woven through it all.

 

She did not, really, hate the Batterwitch.  Roxy knew that she was why she might well be the last human alive, and directly or indirectly the reason her Mom was dead, but…  That just made her Mom a cooler person to her, more of somebody she wanted to be like and added to the draw and her dreams.

Roxy wanted to fight against the Batterwitch, just like her Mom.

It was clear, though, that there was not much she could do, and in a way this did not bother her.  If all she could do was hack the ‘live’ systems, ensure that the Batterwitch’s robotic drones had a blind spot surrounding where she lived, protecting herself and the Carapaces, that was enough for her, even if she might claim differently.

She was not her Mom, who burned bright and fast.  She was at heart a sneaky thief, a being of quiet and the silent empty spaces, slipping in and grabbing victories as she could.

Admitting this, though, was not a thing.

One of the things in common, though, was that she enjoyed untangling mysteries and plots, working out conspiracies even if she lacked the clear sight of her Mom.  The love of putting together puzzles was something that they had shared, even if Roxy perhaps felt that the process was more of its own reward, dispassionate in ways her Mom had never quite been.  The difference was one Roxy never caught, her Mom having covered her feelings with a layer of snark to conceal it from the sight of all, even and especially herself.

Dave had been the only one to see through it, but he left no evidence of that where Roxy might ever find it.

 

For her 11th birthday, Roxy settled down to make contact with the boy she had found, having searched long and hard for another human.

It had pleased her to see he was the Descendant/son of her Mom’s apparent matesprit.  Roxy could understand why they never said anything openly, because of the risks, but the gossip columnists and tabloids gave her enough evidence to satisfy herself.

Never quite admitted to was that this would nearly complete her mirroring of her Mom, with the only thing left to get is to find some way to get the Carapaces to buy wizard stories.

(Roxy sometimes, when really drunk, plotted how to manage that one.)

**Author's Note:**

> I really don't think Roxy actually _hates_ the Condesce; that seems to be more, well, a Dirk thing. She's against what she did and all, but this doesn't really come off as emotionally loaded--but it's done and why be particularly angry at her about it when it won't change anything? She's really the most laid-back of the Strilondes, which is weird, and if it wasn't for the Zahhaks I'd be thinking it had something to do with being a Hero of Void.


End file.
